William Safire
(b. 1929)

Today, William Safire is best known as a newspaper columnist and a leading authority on American language. However, his long and varied career has taken him everywhere from the radio airwaves to the White House.

Safire first got involved in radio while attending Syracuse University on a scholarship. After leaving college, he worked as a radio and television correspondent in Europe and the Middle East. He was also a reporter for the American Forces Network while serving in the United States Army in Europe from 1952 to 1954.

In 1955, Safire went to work for the public relations firm of Tex McCrary, with whom he had worked previously in radio and television. Around this time, Safire also began to make a name for himself in the world of politics, lending his talent for words to various political causes.

Safire wrote speeches as a volunteer for Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign in 1968 and later became one of President Nixon's senior speechwriters. While working on Nixon's successful reelection campaign in 1972, Safire began writing opinion articles for the Washington Post. Soon after, he accepted an offer to be a columnist for The New York Times.

More than 20 years later, Safire is still writing columns about language and politics for the Times. He calls this "the greatest job in the world."

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